Day 541 | Currency Creek: tucked away at the back of the picnic area

31 km | zzOz total: 17,154 km

It was a shock today to be reminded the Murray River is 2400 km long, that’s a fair old treadle.

There was a big information shelter down at the Goolwa Barrage, an adjustable mini dam built in 1940 that prevents saltwater progressing too far upstream, 700 mm is all it takes. A few years ago when the big lake just upstream, Lake Alexandrina, was drying out in the prolonged drought and about to release some toxic acid or alkaline sediment from the lake bottom there was some controversy as to whether to remove the barrage and allow the lake to be flooded with saltwater which would render the lake dead for a decade or two rather than hundreds from the highly toxic release. Fortunately it then started raining in the headwaters averting the dilemma of which ecological catastrophe to pick.

Just a bit further on is the end of the road for those seeking the mouth of the Murray River, you have to take a 1 k long boardwalk over to the seaside beach then traipse for almost a couple of hours along a flat beach to make it there. Or have a tinnie. Or race your near new 4WD at great velocity along the sand.

The mouth was closed up for 10 years, not enough flow, but ever since I left Melbourne almost four years ago it’s been raining consistently, furiously, where it matters up north and in the mountains and the water makes its way from the floods, flushing the river system clean, and now flowing out to sea.

There were 8 fisherman on the fast flowing narrow channel, if you can’t catch a fish here you never will I said to a guy kitted out for success, they landed a 700 mm Mullaway on the other side, my man looking somewhat dejected and barely grunting a reply.

I’m going to try to camp as adjacent to the river as I can but first I need to get around that big Lake Alexandrina at the bottom.

Not so many ks today due to the 4 hour footslog but there’s going to be plenty of long days in the saddle coming up.